How I Use Twitter

July 9, 2007 · Comments

Matrix Boy The first thing people say when realizing just how many friends I’m reading on Twitter is, “How do you read it all?” The shortest answer? I don’t read it ALL. I use Twitter a little differently than you might be using it. Let me explain a bit more what I do with Twitter. This is how *I* use it. You can do it your own way. But I thought I’d share.

Twitter is The Matrix

Or rather, it’s a directed communication stream. I’ve observed that people use it in the following ways:

  • Actual personal status. (I’m hungry. My dog ran away.)

  • Pointers to interesting links.
  • Marketing for personal blog traffic.
  • Group Instant Messaging.
  • Question and Answer.
  • Group Appreciation of a Shared Experience.
  • Live micro-blogging.

Search for Me

I try to make sure if someone’s addressing me, I answer them. I use Twittersearch and search on “Brogan” to see who’s talking about me, so I can answer any questions. I try to reply to as many as possible, but it depends on what mode I’m in. If I’m on the laptop, I answer lots. If I’m on the crackberry, not as much.

Dip Into the Stream

I find Twitter is my #1 recommender of links. I read other people’s stuff and then follow their links all the time. This gets me to more places faster, I feel, than what comes from my RSS reading. So sometimes, I just take a dip in Twitter to see what people are talking about. Think of it as personalized StumbleUpon from trusted sources.

This includes just having the occasional @ conversation with someone. Nice to prove we’re all humans, right?

Presence and Attention

I use Twitter most often to answer the question: “What’s got your attention?” Sometimes, that’s my blog posts. Other times, that’s something I found on a blog, or via a friend. That’s how I’ve chosen to interpret my 140 characters.

Question and Answer

I use Twitter OFTEN to ask questions. It could be “What’s a good service to combine many RSS feeds into one?” or it could be “Should I go see Transformers or Spider Man 3?” In all cases, I get good opinions and advice. I often answer people’s questions there, should I have an answer, and more often than that, I direct one friend to another’s aide.

Helping Others

There’s a VAST wealth of opportunity to help people via Twitter. It can be something stupid like hooking someone up with an invite to a software trial. It might be finding someone a job, or pointing someone to articles they can use for a blog post. In the language of Mr. Steve Gillmor, there are plenty of opportunities to enact a “gesture.”

Venting

Sometimes, I use Twitter to bitch and moan. It’s not my favorite use, but I find that it’s so IMMEDIATE. And so that’s truthfully another way I use it.

My Theory on Friends

I say yes to every friend request barring a few exceptions: I no longer say yes to languages I can’t read. I don’t say yes to fictional characters. I don’t say yes to people with 5,000 friends and 38 followers. I don’t say yes to auto-services that update every time there’s a blog post. Other than that, I add whoever wants to count me as a friend. I find I no longer seek out friends. Occasionally, someone will @ with someone else, and I might add that person to get both sides. But otherwise, I don’t really add many folks. I just appreciate who stops by.

Other than that, if you’re a human, you’re in.

How I DON’T use Twitter

I don’t just read and read and read. I have over 1200 friends. I skim. I surf. I occasionally drill down. But I don’t just read the stream wide-out and full bore. I can’t. It’s no longer set up to accomplish this for me.

Twitter Is

It’s a big vast sea of data, and that data ties to humans. The humans are doing a better job of keeping up a living web than any other service out there. It’s the new gate-basher that gives me access to the minds of brilliant leaders, thoughtful community types, and passionate creators. And I continue to appreciate the service more than any other technology in 2007.

How do YOU Use Twitter?

I’d love your thoughts.

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  • I was a bit disappointed when I offered you a free book of humor essays when you asked (on Twitter) for some travel reading, but hey, that's your choice. I'm not a grudge-holder - LOL

    The offer is still good...a girl's gotta try
  • Right now it's kinda a mashup of what you said. I don't really have enough friends yet to do the "what is a good site for ...." but I pretty much add anyone. Even a couple from japan just because I want to learn the language (and there's an option when setting up the mobile stuff to exclude unicode tweets, so I don't get those on my phone :) ) But I seem to do some sort of filtering on who I do add. I'll occasionally watch the public stream and click on random profiles and somehow decide from there if I should add them or not. But I do add anyone that adds me and is an actual person and not some automated thing. Although the one for woot.com is nice :)
  • I guess I use Twitter more as a news source and micro-blogging tool. Sometimes I feel like jumping in, sometimes more like just reading. No matter what, Twitter is an important part of my online resources.

    Lately I find myself adding nearly everyone except bots and such. It has made the stream even richer than it was previously for me, and I've found an additional dozen or so blogs that I've added to Google Reader.
  • Ah, twitter; my new boyfriend. I have such a crush on twitter--I can't shake it.

    I primarily use twitter to

    a. vent the random chatter in my head

    b. find nifty web bits in the form of links others have tweeted

    c. ask videoblogging questions (nearly all my tweeps are in that world)

    d. Bitch about work live as it happens since I can't do it on my site for privacy reasons (I work in a hospital)

    Occasionally, I even stumble across a recipe.

    I am a twitterfiend. I've tried jaiku, I've tried pownce, they don't do it for me.

    I'm a simple girl who just wants to dispense and consume information 140 characters at a time.
  • I try to add people that are interesting to me whether they add me back or not. I use twitter to maintain online friendships and to keep a pulse on the community at large. I'm very simialar in the way chris adds people, if you have 5000 friends and very little followers you don't get an add.
  • I like the stream of news and info on Twitter. Even the intermixing with the day-to-day stuff is nice. Reminds all of us to have a real life. Or at least a Matrix-enabled one. ;)
  • Twitter is STILL my favorite site/community on the web. I love following people that I either know or wish to know. The best part about twitter is the sms functionality. Sending and receiving from your phone is huge for me. I'm sure I'm more into what my friends are doing than they are with what I'm doing.
  • I have reached the point where I cannot continue following Twitters on my phone for much longer. I do have unlimited text messaging, but I'm going to have to make some changes. I appreciate you sharing how you do it.

    I suspect that my twittering will become one-sided as I don't have constant access to a computer. I'll try to hang in there.
  • I use Twitter in many of the same ways you do. For me, it is a great source of the "pulse" of what people are thinking about now. On days when I don't have the time even to read RSS feeds, Twitter is a way to see what my "friends" think is important. It's been a wonderful resource for links and I've learned a lot from the stream.

    Unlike you, though, I don't add just anyone... usually I only add someone I know directly, largely because I have a limited amount of "attention" I can give Twitter and so I want to give it to those people whom I have come to trust. Having said that, I do from time to time add others if I get a friend request and I look at their page and see that what they are twittering looks like it lines up with my interests. I've learned of some fascinating people that way and been exposed to more things that I would not have known about.

    Another reason I use Twitter - the 140 characters is a good exercise in distilling your message down to a concise and clear piece of text. Brevity has never been a particular strength of mine, so Twitter is a useful way to work on that. :-)
  • trevor
    here's a different point of view i guess. it's funny to me, kinda like watching a young kids soccer game. there's a giant crowd of kids that follows the ball around in a chaotic little dance, no one plays position. there are always though, a few stragglers, outside the crowd. they can be the real thinkers.

    your quote about when people have 5000 friends, and no followers, just shows the usual trend, that people believe that "popular" equates to the "best". hitler was popular at one time, his ideas were followed by the masses. people who opposed, or had different ideas were ignored, considered of little use.

    just like always, if something is unpopular, it finds very little reception from the masses, even if it is excellent, logical, or totally helpful.

    your remark shows you are afraid to take a risk on many people being wrong, but believe m - that happens pretty often, and in fact, most "popular" things are usually wrong in the long term anyway. take oil for instance....or wal-mart, etc. but you will only stick to whatever the masses are doing already though right?

    evaluate things on their own merit, don't be afraid to notice the individuals who are not "good speakers" - for they may say things that are sensible, even if they are not coated in candy.

    people who speak well can trick you. they have a gift to make things popular that are unwise. good speakers, good communicators -BEWARE of them, they speak well, but that doesn't necessarily mean that WHAT they say is good.

    you're very typical, welcome to the average demographic. your opinion has been aggregated, thank you.
  • how do i use? (or what is my take?) i don't think i have any specific strategy or a typical way as such but i must be using it well. at this point of time i do not remember why or how i started following up chris brogan but i am very happy to know you all. i have learned a lot in very short period of time. thanks.
  • I've added selected people to a twitterfeed I get on my reader, everyone else I follow I check in on the website at least once a day to see if I've missed some interesting/ informative links.
    DM's go straight to my phone, all other notifications are turned off.

    I think my main use is as a group IM though, I like to talk to people and twitter makes that easy to do - when it's working..
  • I'm pretty much where MissB is. Also, I recently created an account for Apex Book Company. I've not done much with it yet, but we've gained a few followers, which is always good. However, the other day I saw a post on a blog in one of my feeds discussing Twitter as a journalism tool. My boss/publisher and I decided the ABC account could become a great, albeit interesting, tool for conducting interviews. So, I'm going to give that a whirl and see what happens. Live streaming text interviews. I think it's a cool concept.
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